The UNfun GAME
In 2021,
to cross the Bosnian-Croatian border
over 60,000 people attempted
trying to reach Europe.
In July of that year, most of them were
Afghans fleeing the Taliban regime.
the Biden administration completed
On August 31,
the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan,
As if over 20 years of occupation never happened.
bringing the country back under the Sharia law.
The Taliban knock on your house door, and from that moment, you have two choices.
You either join them to escape torture and blackmail or...
you take the road to Europe.
"
"
"We call it the Game,
a way to turn pain and fear into something
we can try to win."
"But if the Croatian police finds us...
we have to start again from the first square"
For a family, crossing borders secretly is tough: my parents walk slowly and the little children laugh or cry, oblivious to the border agents.
We were rejected 21 times.
"
"
Bihać is a city and the administrative centre of
Una-Sana, one of the 10 Cantons of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
On its roads it very easy to find people with a backbag and a stick.
This old Serb enclave in Bosnian territory was abandoned during the Yugoslav conflict and has been later used as an Islamic terrorist training camp.
Close to Bihac there is Bojna
It is now a no man's land,
one of those places hard to believe it exists.
Bojna is a ghost village repopulated with new ghosts...
hundreds of children, women, and men
- between border crossing attempts -
who desperately seek
safety and shelter
into decrepit houses
surrounded by dozens of tents.
Nonetheless, the pursuit of a normal life
is constant and it gives you an unexpected sense of dignity if you haven’t experienced it firsthand.
This Afghan family welcomed us and offered us everything they had: hot tee, fruit, self-made bread.
No one is so poor to not have anything to give,
accepting is the biggest sign of respect you can show.
Now, even bringing
food and medicine
is
considered
illegal.
Before the deportations to the official camps in Lipa and Sarajevo began, families sheltered in Bojna received help from the local population.
In the Una-Sana Canton, criminalizing solidarity takes criminal forms.
The local activist Salmira and Edin are the only aid that families in transit sheltering in Bojna receive.
Once, Edin was shot while bringing food and water to the village families.
Facilitating Illegal Migration
Art. 189 - Criminal Code
Whoever recruits, transports, hides, harbors or in any other way enables the stay of the smuggled persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of between
6 months and 5 years.
